Prop 8 was the best thing that ever happened to the gay rights movement. We were stripped by a few percentage points of the right to marry. A right that the Supreme Court agreed we deserved. With that we were stripped of 1,000 plus rights given to those that can legally marry. That was wrong and got millions of gay Americans off their sofas and into the the streets to demand, yes DEMAND this injustice stop. It created a national debate that has changed many opinions on this subject.

We will eventually win this battle as more and more Americans are starting to see the unfairness of current laws.

I’m not sure, but I always thought when people call you a “homophobe” they mean you are afraid of your own latent urges, that you “hate” homosexuals because deep down inside you are really attracted to your own sex but don’t want to admit it.

I actually disagree that to disapprove of a lifestyle means you envy it or fear your own attraction to it. I have to agree with you that in the history of civil rights, this is the first time that it has ever been about lifestyle that I can see. And I really disagree with a comparison of the gay movement to that of the African Americans. Gays have been discriminated against, but not to the extent of having to sit in the back of the bus or not being allowed to vote.

I also disagree with the notion that to want to retain the definition of marriage means that you hate gay people. Gay folks already know that they have a different relationship than hetero folks do. I don’t know why they actually wouldn’t want to have their own word, customized just for them, in the place of marriage. It doesn’t exactly make sense to me. But I’m not gay, so I can’t really understand.

and again, I point you to the poll from yesterday – nearly 2/3rds of the population trust Obama more with the economy than the GOP.

the other major difference – there’s a HUGE swing in the %%% of people who think the country is headed in the right direction – in fact, for the first time since 2004, the %% of people who say that the country is heading in the right direction is greater than the %% of people who say it’s not. “According to a poll of 1,000 Americans released today by AP-Gfk, 48% think the country is headed in the right direction, compared to 44% who believe it is not. In October, the final days before the election, only 17% believed the country was going in the right direction, with 78% taking the opposite view” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/23/poll-us-optimism-barack-obama)

from the same article “Americans panned the performance of the Republican congressional opposition’s handling of the economy, with only 29% approving and 65% disapproving. Congressional Democrats, the majority party, have a 50% approval rating, with 45% disapproving. Congress on the whole did not fare well: Only 38% of poll respondents approved of the way Congress is doing its job, with 57% disapproving.”

yes, people are hurting – no one would argue otherwise. however, I don’t think the dye is cast, yet, for the next Congressional election.

unemp rate is 8.9%

The neighborhood WAS surrounded by Great Society Ghettos, but it was under control. Now, it is infested with crackheads. You can’t see the difference? We had crime. Lots of it. The kids from California knew that. They had more research on the area than most of us knew. But we didn’t have people fighting in the streets. We had a decent response time for our policemen. People werre not scared to go out at night.

I have said my peace on this. The quality of life in this country is dropping like a stone. That and other neighborhoods are examples of how people don’t have to lose their job to be affected by this. The most liberal people I know are uncomfortable with the actions that this administration has taken. Their common response is:”At least he is doing something”. That “something” is the most radical takeover in our nation’s history.

There’s a lot of Democrats that will never vote for a Republican. Democrats and Republicans don’t elect our leaders. Independent voters do. They change sides at the drop of a hat.

What would you say was the number one issue was that caused the flip to Democrats? Remember the Democrats took over Congress in 2006. The Iraq War? We are now in Afghanistan, full bore. That was the country that defeated the Soviet Union. And why are we there? Bin Laden has been gone for years. Wire taping? No legislation has been passed that changed the US policy even though Obama attacked Bush over and over about it.

The independents flipped over issues that they were told were important. Quality of life is very important and people feel that every single day. They don’t need Katy Couric to tell them their life is getting harder.

I’m no fortune teller. I have underestimated the power of propaganda before. Media bias right now is worse than I have ever seen, so the Democrats might be able to be installed yet again, but ratings for the majority of liberal TV is dropping faster than ever before. All this was nothing more than my opinion. But it is fairly obvious that people are much more concerned then they have ever been. After such a radical spending spree, Americans will not have the patience to wait for years while watching welfare roles get richer and working people suffer.

the economy isn’t going to “flip” into growth in a couple of months. it’s barely going to be in growth in a couple of quarters. unemployment is going to be high for months – it didn’t reach 8.5% overnight – and, considering it’s a lagging indicator, it isn’t going to back down to 3-4% by the end of this year or, probably, the next.

them’s the facts – economies don’t turn on a dime.

BUT … things are starting to improve – and Ben Bernanke isn’t the only one saying it, many other economists agree:

Testifying before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, the Fed chairman noted a wide array of encouraging data in recent weeks. The hopeful signs include a jump in consumer spending in the first quarter of this year; steadying sales of new and existing homes; and a modest revival of the credit markets.

“I think we are in much better shape than we were in September and October,” Mr. Bernanke told lawmakers.

Taking care not to encourage false hopes, he stopped well short of predicting that good times were around the corner.

The recent data “suggest that the pace of contraction may be slowing,” Mr. Bernanke said. “We continue to expect economic activity to bottom out, then to turn up later this year.”

A growing number of private forecasters say they are convinced the statistical hints of revival, though fragmentary and fragile, are too numerous to be dismissed as a fluke.

“There’s enough evidence to suggest that the free fall of the economy has passed, and that is the first step toward finding the bottom,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/06/business/economy/06fed.html?scp=3&sq=bernanke&st=cse

like I said last night, 18 months is a loooooong time and a lot can happen between now and then, so I’m not saying that the Dems have a lock on ANYthing (let’s be honest – until recently, NO ONE knew how to do circular firing squads quite as well as the Dems — but the GOP seems to be catching on quickly). I’m just saying that being the Party of NO doesn’t seem to be polling well …